Jumper
by Skylark Evanson
Summary: At seventeen, looking back on her life, she knows she doesn't want to do it any longer.


**A/N: Wrote this awhile ago, but this is one of my Artemis pieces where the angst level gets pretty dangerous.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own.**

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**_Jumper_**

The view of Gotham is nice from the complex's quiet, lonely rooftop. Artemis has noticed it hundreds of times before, but she's never really been able to look at it and appreciate it through the crystalline tears that lace her blue-gray orbs. The girl has seen that same skyline plenty of times, and each time she's come down, she's glad she enjoyed the view.

She's a jumper. She's been trying to kill herself for years now, just to escape the everyday pain of living. Artemis can hardly take it any longer, the misery of surviving. Everything that's ever been good had always soured faster than she was able to enjoy it.

At seventeen, looking back on her life, she knows she doesn't want to do it any longer.

She steps up to the edge and breathes in the tobacco-filled air and stares out over the disgusting city while hot tears spill from her eyes; she knows she can't be strong forever.

Because her dad drank away her college fund. She found out today after checking up on her savings accounts. Emptied. All those years of watching him down booze while she patched up his weapons, washed his bloodstained clothes, and tended to his wounds, he'd been drinking away the rest of her life.

If she hadn't killed him already, she would've killed him now. She knows she's ready to kill. There's plenty of blood running down her wrists, and the violent tendencies have been showing for a while now; how no one else has taken notice just blows her mind...

Her future's ruined, she's aware of it now. There's nowhere to go but down, deep into the slums of Gotham, the sewers even, if she grows so desperate.

It's not just that either.

Since she was young, she's been put down to the lowest spot on the food chain. Artemis took plenty of beatings as a kid, and there's a certain point where it starts to pile up and the mind gets muddled into believing that all the punishment is deserved. After losing to Jade, she'd be told that she was worthless, useless, and an assortment of other degrading things. As far as they were concerned, she was an animal with nothing more than instinct: emotions couldn't exist in the mind of one so stupid and small.

The saddest part: it didn't take much to make her believe them.

She carries a self-loathing complex now, which replaces these insecurities. Maybe it's better this way, the cutting and hating, rather than feeling like the walking dead.

For a while now, she's been cutting. It doesn't feel good. She doesn't like it. Really, the sight of blood makes her nauseous, and the smell of it makes her want to cry. But with enough strength, she manages to put forth the punishment and do the nasty deed. She has to put herself back in her place, show herself what she's worth-

Nothing.

When she looks in the mirror, she sees his face staring back, smeared with blood with skin torn away; sometimes an eye is even gouged out, leaving a gaping hole in his face that always makes her sick. Artemis can't take it anymore. She's broken all the mirrors in the apartment. Even the tv, for what little reflection of her father it delivers.

And she's afraid of herself, what she can do, what she might do. The self-mutilation is nothing compared to how terrified she is of what she'll do to others. Especially considering how many people in the world have already been ruined by what her family does. Murderers. Assassins. Monsters.

Yet even they are worth more than she is.

Artemis wants to do right. Justice cried out for her, and she gave her best attempt to answer. She saved some face, took on the persona, played the Gotham good girl for a while. She tried so hard to be good, really. She wanted to feel like she was worth something, and maybe these people would make her feel good, please, she just wanted to feel better...

Their morals were stronger; they were all beautiful people. Even the simple things, flashing a comforting smile, made her feel like she didn't deserve their kindness. After all she'd done, after all she'd been trained to do, these people took her in like one of their own.

She both loved and hated every second of it.

There was something to fight for in her life, and it was just the most amazing thing. She could wake up in the morning and want to get out of bed, feeling like that damned Cheshire cat would never put her down again. She felt amazing in that costume, especially when bestowed with honest praise. Nothing was better than hearing Batman tell them "Good work." or the sound of Green Arrow's voice saying, "You're improving nicely." Because those things meant that she was worth something.

But then came the dark side: she was flawed; she carried secrets; she was _mean._ And everything she hated about herself came out the second they started making decisions. They had defined lines of light and dark, right and wrong, good and evil.

Artemis grew up on the bad side of that street. Now, having to take a new view, she realized all her morals were trapped in a gray area where there were no such things as good and evil, but merely different mindsets.

It confused her more than anything, watching them make a choice that was correct from the standpoint of an innocent, but from the victor who had come to collect the spoils, killing was nothing more than a hobby, and it was something she accepted willingly in her childhood.

After all, death was just sleeping, right?

She figures she'll be asleep in a few minutes maybe. Just in a deep sleep. It'll be peaceful, with no thoughts, no pain, no hate. Artemis can only guess it'll be nice there, spending her time with Death and the Devil. Purgatory had never been a word she'd known because such a place would never be able to cure her of these sins.

The only thing that bothers her about suicide is all the friends she'll leave behind, traumatized and scared. Nothing else bothers her much, really. She just doesn't want to hurt them. They're the only family she has now; the team is her whole life at this point, but now without money for college or her extracurriculars, she has no choice but to quit living.

It's not just the money. It's that she's sick to her stomach when she looks at herself. She hates that she isn't pretty enough, that her morals are no good, that these people don't deserve her. Artemis feels like she isn't worth the time nowadays. She belongs in a cold basement, the victim of a whip; physical suffering was her best companion as a child, and if he's abandoned her now, she knows she's lost everything she's clung onto all these years.

On the edge, the jumper stands and watches over her city, the tears still making tiny waterfalls on her ruddy cheeks. A gasping sob takes her throat and chokes her up. Artemis knows she wants to, has to. The danger of living is far higher now, and she doesn't want to keep doing this. Every mirror sends her into hysterics. Just standing in a dressing room made her try to cut herself on the metal hooks.

She takes a step backwards, falling into the gravel that coats the rooftop, a second sob stealing her voice. Artemis curls into a ball and begins to cry her heart out.

Every time she's tried to save herself from Misery's grasp, she realizes that she isn't worth saving. Not even Death is a good enough punishment for all she's done wrong. She doesn't deserve to die so easily.

Living will serve as torture enough.

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**A/N: Review?**

**~Sky**


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